State measure spending among highest yet

Updated 10:59 pm, Friday, October 19, 2012

Sacramento --

Supporters and opponents of the 11 propositions on the November ballot already have contributed nearly $300 million toward passing and defeating those measures, with more than two weeks still to go until election day, according to a new analysis of campaign funding.

Groups that monitor money in politics said the funding is among the highest ever in California.

The analysis was conducted for The Chronicle by MapLight, the nonpartisan Berkeley organization that tracks money in politics. It found that as of this week, $292 million had been collected by dozens of committees advocating support or opposition to the propositions.

That total undoubtedly will climb as election day approaches.

Kim Alexander, the president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, said, "I think it's safe to say it's going to be up there amongst the most expensive ballots ever seen in California. I'm not sure it's going to break the record, but it's certainly up there in the stratosphere."

The foundation last tallied total contributions to ballot measures in the 2004 general election and concluded that a new record was set with just under $200 million. But the 2006 election also had a series of well-financed propositions that together may account for higher spending than this year's propositions, Alexander said.

Money contributed for ballot propositions does not almost continually break records, as is seen in candidate races like the contest for president. The biggest factors are the number of measures on the ballot and the size of the pockets of the interests supporting or opposing the measures.

Steyer has contributed almost $22 million for Proposition 39, which would eliminate a tax break for corporations headquartered out of state and use the money to fund clean energy projects. Molly Munger has spent almost $33 million on Proposition 38, which would raise income tax rates on nearly all Californians and dedicate almost all of the money to public schools.

Calculating exactly how much money is contributed to a specific measure is made more difficult by the dozens of committees that are set up to collect the dollars. Many of those committees raise funds for multiple measures, and it's not clear how they are allocating the money.

The overall MapLight analysis of $292 million in contributions accounts for that phenomenon to avoid counting dollars more than once.

"As long as the information is disclosed and people know who is spending to support or oppose ballot measures, it's hard to say that it's corrupting, which I think is the issue of campaigns," Ravel said.

But Jessica Levinson, an associate clinical professor at Loyola Law School who follows money in politics, said high spending is both a fact of life in modern campaigns and a problem.

"The amount of money being spent in campaigns is really overwhelming," she said. "It gives the impression that politics is a game for monied interests. I think it drowns out other voices."

Levinson said it's not realistic to try to lessen the amount of money spent, given the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that money is the same as speech, but she said federal entities including the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission should be stricter about what qualifies as a nonprofit that does not have to disclose donors.

Desired changes

Alexander of the California Voter Foundation said she would like to see changes to California's storied direct democracy system to give those who aren't wealthy more of an opportunity to participate. One of those would be to lengthen the amount of time proponents have to collect signatures to put something on the ballot, which is currently 150 days and hasn't been increased since the inception of the initiative system 100 years ago.

She also said disclosure about who is funding a measure should be included in the voter guide.

Still, Californians are protective of the system, and a single monied interest has never outright bought an election, convincing voters to pass something that is not in their interest, she said.

"You can't win an initiative without money, but you can't win with only money," Alexander said.

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